Over the course of 25 years, Charles V. Willie created an enduring legacy at the Maxwell School—first as a graduate student, earning a Ph.D. in sociology in 1957, and then as a faculty member, becoming Syracuse University’s first Black tenured professor and serving as chair of the Sociology Department. In 1974, he left Syracuse to join the faculty of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, where he remained until his retirement in 1999.

Willie’s work and impact extended far beyond academia, as he applied his scholarship to issues of equity and social justice. A committed activist on campus and beyond, he twice brought his college friend Martin Luther King Jr. to speak on campus in the 1960s. Among Willie’s accomplishments were successfully advocating for equal treatment of Black college football players, the ordination of women priests in the Episcopal church, and the desegregation of schools through an innovative approach he called “controlled choice.” 

“He never just looked at existing structures,” says his son James Willie. “He was always asking, ‘What do we need? What could we do better? What is the most equitable thing to do?’ And then he’d work toward that.”

James Willie and his wife, Susan Willie, will accept the award. They met while completing their M.P.A. degrees at Maxwell—both graduated in 1998 and have continued in public service careers in the Washington, D.C., area. James currently works in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Susan in the Congressional Budget Office. James is one of three children of Charles and Mary Sue Willie; they were married for 59 years.